A few days ago I wrote about this very subject, but was struck today when I read the Spirit of Prophecy Devotional which I will post at the bottom. I shared about Jonah exercising his free will, but still ultimately doing what God said.
I was thinking that God knows the heart of an individual and he know they really do want what He wants. But He does not make us do what we don’t want to do and that is the truth. So He will allow us to do or get exactly what we want. Sometimes we accept early on that we must acquiesce to His will and we just submit. But other times we will go on and do what we desire to do and that is also a part of the plan.
Today as I read the devotional below, I knew God was telling me not to pray against some exercising their free will (I won’t) but to allow His process to take place. Sometimes the action that we want to spare someone of is the very circumstance that will get them to destiny. In other words, your rebellious teen may have to hook up with the bad boy in order to become who God wants her to become. Your wayward son may have to go the route of smoking marijuana and go to jail to make him into who he needs to be. Your wrong decision, even if you don’t think it is right now, will bring you to the right decision.
I’m a seer and I always want to protect people from what I see. Parents are seers too! (lol) They have lived life and been down some hard roads and they see the end, so they want to protect their child. But in the end, we all have life lessons to learn, so we cannot pray that some will not exercise their free will and learn even the hardest lessons. God is going to use that nightmare they are about to go through and work it out for their good.
SMALL STRAWS IN A SOFT WIND by Marsha Burns–01/24/12:
Enter the realm of the Spirit and ask what you will in faith. Do not hesitate or come with doubt or double-mindedness. Come expecting an answer, for I will surely hear and answer your requests according to My purposes, says the Lord. And, in your asking do not violate the free-will choices of others, for the ability to choose has been afforded to all and cannot be transgressed. Come to Me with purity of heart and exercise your childlike faith.
James 1:2-8 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
